DISPLAY INTERVIEW

2021, Jun

Eleonora Brizi, was the guest of the fourth episode of Display.

EXCERPTS

Eleonora Brizi on the left, Hackatao on the right, an art collective that is now making an artwork. Eleonora, I think Hackatao has delegated to you the story of this work and of what is happening. First of all, tell us a little bit about this work of which you have been a supporter and curator, then let’s talk a little bit about you and your digital gallery.

 

E: Yes, we are talking about art, so we found a better way to do it: to show you the artists at work. They are an Italian artistic duo, but when we talk about crypto art and art and technology it doesn’t even make too much sense to localize anymore, we are global, we are on the web and they are pioneers of crypto art, paradoxically first internationally and then Italian, always for the same reasons. Right now they are making one of their sculptures, called “Podmork”. I have had the pleasure of working with them for a long time now, and they are artists who start with physical art, so canvases, sculptures, and then move on to digital art, specifically crypto art. Without categorizing them too much, since art does not ask us to do so, it is always us who do it, they are artists who have always kept themselves contemporary, so they have always maintained the curiosity to experiment with new tools and, in this case, with technology.

 

You are a curator of digital art. You organized an exhibition called Renaissance 2.0 2.0, meaning you brought digital art into a physical space. Many times we have participated in exhibitions where there were videos or projections, so if by digital we mean not the classic traditional pictorial 

 
 

or sculptural art, also digital art, in this period, has been deprived of its physical space. According to you, by enjoying digital art online, isn’t something lost anyway? 

 

E: Our biggest advantage, a stroke of luck at this very sad time of the pandemic, has been giving digital art a boost of at least 10 years as a strong presence in the art world. The insight we had a long time ago, when unfortunately we were much less credible than we are now, actually gave us an advantage over the physical art world.
Digital art has not been deprived of its space because it is digital native, so the language it speaks is already digital, it was born to live in the digital and paradoxically it finds much more difficulties to be exhibited in a physical space rather than on the web or by organizing virtual exhibitions.


I organized this exhibition, Renaissance 2.0 2.0, in a structure dating back to 1600, namely in the Museums of San Salvatore in Lauro in Rome. Among other things, researchers have discovered that San Salvatore in Lauro was even the first place in the world where the first art exhibition as it is known today was made. The fact that this first digital art exhibition was organized here makes me very happy. But, actually, we encountered huge problems, including very thick walls where it was impossible to reach the rooms with Wi-Fi and we had a lot of animations to put on display. So, I don’t think that digital art has been deprived of physical space, but, of course, I would never compare the energy of a physical space with visitors coming into contact and that of virtual space, but one is not independent of the other, in the sense that they are two very different energies.